


where i can be

by justdoityoufucker



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Love Confessions, M/M, Non-Canonical Backstory, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Shiro (Voltron), Time Strangeness, world-building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 10:17:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16173083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justdoityoufucker/pseuds/justdoityoufucker
Summary: Shiro dies, but----he's not the only one there, in the void.





	where i can be

**Author's Note:**

> As I loudly yelled on Twitter, I like my sentai teams with long backstories of heroism and tragedy, and I'm still a sucker for A:tLA as well, which is where this came from. Names for the other black paladins either made up or taken from Dune. This is a big stylistic departure from my usual writing, please let me know in a comment if you like it!  
> (also irn is named for irn-bru bc i'm in the states and im CRAVING it)

it is silent, wherever he is, the roar of pain in his head fading to a quiet ache. memories come back, flood him with sensation, and he remains in place as he sees the fight with Zarkon, with Haggar flash before his eyes. he--he  _ thinks _ he’s in Black, but the familiar purring is too loud, too encompassing.

he opens his eyes, breathes. 

oh, he’s in Black. he’s surrounded by her vast mindscape, the glittering of imaginary stars and galaxies unfolding, endless, around him.  _ patience yields focus _ , he desperately recites, eyes shut again. he breathes. Zarkon wasn’t there; if this is the sequel to their earlier tussle over the lion, something is wrong.

with firm control over his breathing, he opens his eyes, surveys around him. nothing. inky black blending into blues and purples and violets, twinkles of light flickering in the open space.  _ patience _ , he tells himself again, pushes up and stands. as he thought; no Zarkon, no sign of anyone else.

he turns to his memories, sifting to see if anything,  _ anything _ would explain it.

-

shiro doesn’t know how long it takes, but he remembers the pain. the agony, as his body was destroyed, ripped apart atom by atom. the last few remnants of the druids’ black magic, finally successful in their mission, aided by his own damned arm.

the panic bubbles through him; the other paladins, Allura and Coran, the Blade members helping them,  _ Keith _ \--

\--a sob rips from his throat. he’s left them. he’s  _ dead _ .

-

time indeterminant passes as he mourns, tries to find a way out. it feels like days; it feels like seconds. he asks,  _ pleads _ with Black to let him out, let him see what has happened.

nothing. Black remains a steady presence in and around him, but he--

he is alone.

-

time passes, again, Shiro heedless to it. he has tried everything he can think to do, every way he can try to get out.

‘Shiro,’ a voice says, in his mind but around him. he turns; ten meters away, a person in an IVA suit, all long limbs and black-violet sheen (like Keith). the pilot stands, and the black of the suit nudges something in his mind, something that says: familiar.

‘you are here long before your time,’ she says, and her voice is gentle. she takes the helmet off, and her skin is stark white, her hair long and black, eyes twinkling like the cosmos surrounding them. ‘I am Shaddam, first pilot and head paladin of Voltron,’ her voice is soft, echoing across the empty space between them. ‘the first paladin of the Black lion.’

Black makes a noise halfway between a purr and a growl in response. it’s lonesome. a sound of mourning.

-

there’s perhaps a dozen and a half of them, winking in and out of existence as Shiro walks, mindless and heedless. Shaddam likewise flickers, but seems more corporeal as she keeps his pace.

‘you have questions.’

it is a statement of fact, cut and dry. but it leaves Shiro grasping, wondering where to start. wondering if any of his questions have answers.

‘I’m dead,’ he says, doesn’t even have the wherewithal to care that it is not a question.

a pause. ‘you are.’

confirmation does not make it hurt less.

-

Rhose is Altean, or proto-Altean. his eyes are the same star-bright as Allura’s, his hair the glow of moonlight. he sits with Shiro; Leto is next to him, a small Bilran with oversized blue-grey ears, a mane to match. the others--Amma, Mohiam, Yueh, Irn--all alien races long since gone from the universe or so diluted through the ages they are unrecognizable to Shiro’s eyes. the kinship between them, though, is palpable, as if he might be able to reach out and touch the ties keeping them together, keeping them in the lion.

there isn’t a linear ancestry that Shiro can place from where Shaddam once sat to where he drew his last breath. Allura said that her father was the one to create the lions, but that  _ cannot _ be right, not with his own precursors surrounding him.

‘the lions,’ he stops, breathes, begins again, ‘how long has Voltron existed?’

quiet, the murmuring of Black around them. ‘by your Earth-years,’ it’s Shaddam, and her hand ghosts over his head as if to reassure him, ‘one hundred twenty two thousand years.’

‘give or take,’ Yueh says, stretching his three pairs of greenish-yellow arms, fingers twitching in calculations.

‘how?’ Shiro finds himself asking, into the silence.

-

‘the first leader of the Altea, Alkora,’ Rhose says. his voice is strong, echoing across all of them, where they drift in the purpling light. ‘Alkora found the spirits of the lions, gave them bodies with which to fulfill their purpose. to guard the universe; to preserve life. to mark history and the passing of time.’

‘Alkora,’ Shaddam’s voice is wistful. it feels like Shiro’s chest when he thinks of Keith. wanting, missing. ‘pilot of the Yellow Lion.’

Alkora is not so different from Alfor, and Shiro’s been in space long enough to know that language is the same everywhere and bastardization is commonplace.

‘and you have all been here…?’ there’s no need to finish the question; the mind meld of the lion is not just with the other paladins of his team, Shiro has found. he gets glimpses--flashes of his predecessors in life, and their thoughts mix together.

it’s helpful to speak, though, and he can feel how grateful the others are that he is there, talking to them.

one whose name he does not know answers that, his voice a susurrus, like the cool movements of a snake on rock or leaves on cold dirt. ‘the Black Lion keeps her pilots close, even in death.’ there’s something fond, but also bitter in that statement.

‘we are,’ adds Leto, ‘our whole beings. physicality gone. minds, lives. a stasis.’

Black hums in agreement, all-encompassing.

-

time is funny in nebulous space of Black’s mind, passing in jumps and starts. or so it seems, when he manages to get glimpses through Black’s physical eyes. he can control that, Shaddam has said, can choose to look through, can even manifest inside Black, though their phantoms are never truly visible to those still living.

Shiro has only managed a few glimpses. none of them are reassuring.

it’s all Keith--of course it’s Keith, he always knew Keith would be the head of Voltron after him, no matter his self-deprecating thoughts or refusals. but now that he’s there, in Black’s too-big seat, and Shiro feels horrified by it all. there’s so much  _ sadness _ , cut by blinding uncertainty even though Black has fully accepted Keith.

he cannot help but feel it is his own fault.

-

he finds himself in Black on one of Keith’s trips out to open space.

one of his trips to find Shiro.

it’s a methodical process, and if Shiro was not heartbroken by it he would be intrigued as Keith carefully marks off grids of space as he flies. he’s quiet, solemn as Shiro hasn’t seen him in a long time.

he’s been out for hours, Shiro can tell that, and it’s even more before he speaks. his voice sounds like it used to at the Garrison, before Shiro had knuckled his way into his life and forced him to be social. harsh, unused.  _ sad _ .

‘where are you, Shiro?’ the bags under his eyes are like bruises, and his hands are white where they hold Black’s controls. ‘ _ please _ . come back. come back to me.’

-

it’s easy to get lost in his own thoughts and just drift, after that. it’s stupid; he never told Keith how he felt about him and there’s no reason for him to try now. he wants, more than anything, for Keith to move on and accept that he’s gone, and never coming back.

he doesn’t travel back to Black’s physical form after that. it hurts too much.

-

time passes, and Shiro is only tangentially aware of the events outside of the realm of Black’s mind. he and the other paladins talk of the past, the future. Allura was not wrong in what she told them; Voltron appeared to her father after years hidden within the vortex of a white hole, guarded from those who would seek to use it wrongly. waiting for the necessary time.

Shaddam’s Voltron team--the first--saved the universe before humanity even existed in cohesive societies. the thought itself is boggling, but the story

(long and winding, of love and war and ultimately death)

is familiar. it’s like the old sci-fi flicks he used to hunt down, bad rips on the internet that didn’t age well but gave the sweet promise of freedom in the stars, or even the fantasies that both Keith and Adam liked, sweeping tales spanning time and space with colorful casts of characters.

not so different from his own life, really.

the others share their stories, distract him from Keith and everything he cannot now change. they say nothing of it, but he can feel along their shared bond through Black that they know his feelings toward Black’s new paladin.

-

‘it is little consolation, I am sure,’ Shaddam says, ‘but time dulls the pain. give yourself that; give him that.’

-

they all feel it when the new paladin sits in the chair, seeks to help his

( _ Shiro’s) _

team.

it feels like agony to Shiro, like he’s being pulled in two directions at once. none of the others have seen anything of the sort, a paladin dead yet alive, within Black and yet still in physical form.

this new Shiro, this not-Shiro, calls to him. it is him, after all, and yet it is not him. they share a face, motivations, care for their teammates, and--

\--it’s enough that Keith smiles again, however little he is with the team. it has to be enough.

-

‘something is wrong,’ Shaddam says, and it is understandable as she knows Black best. Shiro can feel it, too, but he is unsure if it comes from the facsimile of him or from the lion. ‘there is tainted magic affecting this place.’

‘the lion?’ Irn asks. she’s taller than the rest of them, powerfully built, and she flickers as she listens.

‘our paladin,’ Shaddam says. she turns, fixes Shiro with starlight eyes, ‘your paladin, young one.’

‘we must help him,’ they murmur as one, and Black moves as the facility falls.

-

‘I died, Keith,’ the pain on his face cuts Shiro to the core but he tries to push on best he can. it’s only when he’s surrounded by the other paladins that he realizes his time with Keith is up.

they don’t let him stew; they pour their energy to him in unspoken agreement, forcing him off of the mind-scape as Keith begs for his help.

he’ll do anything,  _ anything _ , to help Keith.

-

he feels Allura’s touch like an electric shock to Black and his own mind in tandem. the others gather around him as they had mere hours before, supporting him, helping Allura push him out of the mind of the lion and cradle him in her own soft consciousness.

‘live,’ their voices echo, ‘we will see you again, when all is done.’

the reconciliation of his mind with the new body is not very foreign, not after being trapped within the physical representation of the Black Lion’s mind for what was, apparently, a year. he can still feel the faint whispers of Black, of the other paladins as he opens his eyes, sees earth and sky and the others and--

_ Keith _ .

he’s weak, but that’s not the only reason he falls against Keith, there in the middle of people he has grown to consider family. to be able to touch and feel after an eternity of lacking it is a certain type of bliss that he doesn’t want to let pass. he can feel exhaustion overtaking him, but for a few moments, he lets himself be content there.

-

he finds himself in the pilot’s bunk of Black, a space that is more unfamiliar than familiar. Krolia appraises him of the situation, her eyes guarded as she looks him over. ‘treat him well,’ she finally says after informing him of his impressively long nap, of how far they’ve made it while he’s rested.

he feels vulnerable under her violet eyes, a feeling only cut when her lips quirk, ever so slightly. it’s such a  _ Keith _ gesture that he freezes for a moment. ‘I’ll let you two be for a little while.’

he follows her out of the small cabin, lets the space wolf drool on his hand before Krolia takes hold of its ruff and disappears in a flash of blue light.

Keith is seated in the pilot’s chair, adjusting something on the autopilot before he slides back and stretches, all lean lines and sharp points. his head tips back, and he finally notices Shiro.

there’s something in his eyes, like honest surprise that Shiro is there, physically standing in the cockpit of the lion with him.

he shakes his head like a wet dog, shoves the chair back to lock in and stands. ‘thought you were asleep,’ something is still guarded, but there’s obvious eagerness in his tone.

‘I think I’ve slept enough,’ Shiro replies, allowing himself a fond, indulgent smile at the eyeroll that earns.

‘hungry?’ it’s almost like he has a checklist of things to ask.

Shiro holds up his hand, ‘I’m fine. Krolia saw to that. I was wondering if we could talk.’

-

they wind up in the cabin again, mostly because there isn’t really anywhere else to sit and Allura threatened all of the paladins into getting some rest. it’s a little strange how easily Shiro feels himself fitting back into their team, though everyone treats him as though he’s fragile, breakable in a way he never was before.

‘I’m glad to have you back,’ Keith says again, as if the more he says it, the less likely Shiro is to disappear again.

Shiro can’t help how his mind goes back to the fight with not-Shiro, how Keith really thought that Shiro was the one trying to kill him. there is so much that is broken between them but Shiro--

\--he won’t just do anything to help Keith, he’ll do anything for Keith.

‘I’m sorry,’ because he is, and for more than Keith knows. it needs to be said.

‘it wasn’t--’ Keith bites his own lip, cuts himself off. when he pins Shiro with his purple-blue gaze, his voice is firm, ‘it wasn’t you. you did nothing wrong, and there was nothing you could’ve done.’

Shiro lets his thumb skim over Keith’s cheek, the scar tissue built up there. ‘that doesn’t lessen my feeling of responsibility,’ he says in return. the pinch in between Keith’s eyebrows tells him to drop the topic, but it’s hard to. it’s hard to know that he, albeit indirectly, caused Keith so much pain.

‘you said you love me,’ Shiro says, and the way Keith’s face flames a purpled red is telling enough. but that isn’t enough for some base part of him; he wants to hear it again, wants to know if it’s true.

Keith is quiet for a moment, avoiding his eyes, but again his gaze returns and pins Shiro like a butterfly under glass. his face is flushed, but his voice is steady when he says, ‘I do. I love you, Shiro.’

fondness wells up in his chest, overflows as Keith takes a stuttering breath, starts to pull away. ‘if that--’

‘Keith,’ Shiro interrupts, hand still on the scar on his cheek, thumb moving a small, comforting arc more for himself than for Keith, ‘I love you, too.’

the look on his face is disbelieving shock, and he tries to pull away again, but Shiro cups his hand around Keith’s neck, pulls him closer. ‘Keith,  _ I love you _ ,’ he emphasizes each word, and Keith’s eyes are suspiciously bright, ‘is that okay?’

‘of  _ course _ ,’ he replies, and they fall together easily, like breathing.

-

he wakes in Black, Keith pressed to him in sleep. for the fleetest of moments, he can feel the familiar press of Shaddam’s hand on his head, the whisper of her voice in his ears.

‘be happy, Takashi Shirogane.’

and she is gone and Shiro know that the connection is severed until his death.

(again)

it’s bitter, to lose Black. but, as he pulls Keith impossibly closer, a sacrifice he doesn’t mind making.


End file.
